Posts Tagged ‘liqueurs’

There are some products that get a hard time from bartenders. Whenever they’re mentioned in conversation, we wrinkle our noses and shake our heads for whatever reason, if we’ve given it enough thought to come up with a reason. Take – for example – Midori. The fact that it was launched in Studio 54 at the Saturday Night Fever wrap party in 1978 has left the liqueur with a cheesy disco tag it may never shake off, and its popularity among young girls with a sweet tooth and drinkers of the saccharine, unbalanced, fruit concoctions the 80’s were famed for are not helping its reputation with old-school cocktail revivalists.

Midori does a couple of things very well. It brings an instant hit of fruit to a drink, along with a stand-out colour and a good degree of sweetness. These can all be helpful characteristics, so long as they’re not allowed to overpower the whole drink. It might have an image problem, but Midori can be a useful ingredient when it comes to start thinking about summer cocktails.

A couple of weeks ago, I put a plan into motion. A plan so momentous it would spell the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, by “civilisation as we know it”, I mean three grapefruits and a bottle of vodka. The plan was best described as basic:

Strip the peel off the grapefruits? Check.
Soak in 40% ABV vodka (I used Finlandia) for two weeks? Check.
Shake every couple of days? Check.
Strain out the grapefruit peel? Check.
Add simple syrup to make up a third of the total volume? Check.
Leave in the fridge for a week to marry? Big ol’ check.

So, three weeks after the start of this groundbreaking project, I humbly present ednbrg’s Finest Grapefrucello! It’s got a lovely translucent golden honey colour to it, with a smooth, syrupy mouthfeel. On the tongue, it’s fairly uncomplicated – it tastes of grapefruit and that’s about it – which is to be expected, I guess. Being a first attempt there are a couple of things I’m unhappy with. For one, there’s a bit of a burn from the alcohol coming through when the liqueur warms up, and the flavour doesn’t seems to finish rather more quickly than I’d anticipated (though that could be a thing that happens with grapefruit?). But, as my maiden voyage into the world of home-made liqueurs and syrups, I’m pretty damn happy with it.

Coincidentally, I’m heading into work to do some cocktail training so hopefully I’ll have a couple of recipes to share later on.

I am nothing if not a dedicated following of the whole drink-blogging fraternity and, over at Kaiser Penguin, they’ve birthed a bouncing baby meme that I am, of course going to jump right on board. So – what would I have if I could only have ten bottles of alcohol for the rest of my life? Read the rest of this entry »